This program was made possible in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

[Music] Ready, roll!

Let's get this game going!

[Music] The city's pocket playgrounds have their lows and highs.

Street games, snorting, shooting up, and the biggest high of all, reached only by a few.

On the playgrounds, you're one of the crowd.

The action is fast and furious, and it becomes a fight to be first.

For the man with the ball, the dream grows.

And carries him higher, toward the hoop.

The high comes closer.

The man with the ball is on his way.

Applause, attention, and he can reach for the stars, but it's just for a few.

That high of fame and riches is just a dream for most players who play the only game in town.

Dropped in the shadow of the city projects, the pocket playgrounds take little upkeep and less equipment.

On the dust-covered surfaces, basketball is the game.

Demands are modest.

A patch of asphalt, a hoop, and a ball.

And the game spills off the playground and runs around the block.

[Music] Me, myself, like, I play ball, I play ball in the summer, I play ball out here, like, just regularly, you know.

I'm not playing on no team enough for now, you know.

But I got stamina, you know.

As you see, I can jump, I shoot, I'm good.

Author Pete Axhelm calls basketball the city game.

The plays and the precision can be learned in small towns and suburbs, the source of much big-time talent.

But in the city, basketball lives.

They're not aware of it at the particular time they're doing it, but it's a way out of the street or the ghetto, whatever you want to call it.

And always the minority groups come out through entertainment or through athletics or through the social service type of thing.

The police, firemen, cops, post office men and so on.

But the first one, the first time you see it is in sports and entertainment.

A lot of people like to play this sport.

It's nothing else to do.

Like, when you're in a house, it's nothing to do.

That's what most people around here play is basketball.

Because you can't play, like, tennis like most upper-class people play, like sports upper-class people play.

So people like us, we play basketball.

There's courts all around.

Well, it's important to me because I can get the kids out here and they can get out most of their energy, you know.

Besides tearing up cars and things.

We have some pretty good basketball players.

We have three kids from Cardinal Hayes High School.

And we have one kid that made All-American from one of the schools downtown.

So we're trying our best to keep the kids in the street playing and trying to keep them out of trouble.

So I appreciate and I got a lot of respect for a person who's sitting on do something and stick with it.

And don't let nothing, you know, come in between what they want to do and go what they want.

After they get it, then people can say what they want.

Like, what Frazier, right?

He got what he want.

He can sit down on his behind.

Now he lay on the court.

Nicks don't make the playoff.

He go in the hospital and lay up the last six weeks of the season, right?

Well, you got to be in college.

You got to finish high school, be in college.

You got to practice.

And you got to practice hard.

And you got to think of what you're going to do.

It's not easy.

It's a lot of competition out there.

And you got to take, you have to have a lot of practice.

You don't need to be tall.

You just got to play, try your best.

[Music] Our life in the city is basketball.

You can go on almost any playground, basketball gymnasium, and find some group of kids at any age playing a game of basketball.

Whether it's one-on-one, varsity, what have you, they will be playing basketball.

Then they see the success of Frazier's and Willis Reed's and Oscar Robinson's and so on.

And these become the Elizabeth Taylor's to them.

And this becomes the way out.

It could be, it could be, and it could be a helpful way of just staying in the ghetto.

Most of your playgrounds are in minority areas, predominantly black.

And basketball in your big cities, whether it be New York, Philadelphia, Chi, Baltimore, Washington, is a way of life.

That's when a young black or a young Chicano or so on has a feel for ball, usually comes around the age of 11 or 12, because they can't reach the basket before that unless they're extremely strong, because the basket's 10 feet high.

And if they're good, they have to wait their turn to break in.

They'll hang around, and all of a sudden the high school kids one day will not have enough players, and they'll take this young fellow in the game.

And that'll be his biggest thrill.

The story starts here.

The game is played by everybody because it's the thing to do, and it provides status and recognition.

It is a safety valve.

It can and does lead to dreams of greatness.

More realistic choices pale by comparison.

Many athletes and other observers worry that constant exposure to fame through basketball obscures other choices, and that disillusion and lack of resources that follow the unrealized dream can be destructive.

The thing is, though, I feel that most of the kids, because of the exposure we professional athletes get, this is the only thing that they ever really see that's projected for them to see constantly.

And most of the times you find these kids have had personal contact with some professional athlete, whether it's at a camp or whether it's at the arena that they play or in a playground.

And to them, it's more real.

The professional athlete is more real to them because they feel that these people are just like themselves, come from the same type of neighborhood.

So it reinforces that idea that this is something that they can obtain.

Some kids make it.

Some kids don't.

Those who do follow a prescribed route.

It involves staying straight, getting some good high school coaching, recruitment to college, then catching the eye of the pros.

George Pruitt is a successful, sensitive man who coaches at Parker High School on Chicago's tough south side.

He credits his time and player talent for his ability to move outstanding athletes along to college, sometimes with a stop off at a junior college, to bridge the academic gap.

For dazzling shot makers and ball handlers, recruiting is fiercely competitive.

There are rumors of altered transcripts and alumni favors, but basketball scandals seem a thing of the past.

Yes, it gets pretty rough.

Arthur Bright, he's 6'6".

He's been highly recruited by most every major school in the United States.

Say someone who's after Arthur Bright there, every school comes in and they sell you their program.

All right?

So I listen and I don't have them disturb the kid too much because he has classes right now.

And I'm honest with him.

And some tell some things that aren't.

Some tell some things that are.

So we have to sit down with his parents and myself, Arthur Bright.

We have to sit down and just try to decide which one is the best place for him.

Yes, we've had, of course, the greatest as far as I'm concerned was Bo Ellis.

Bo was one of those unusual individuals in high school that a coach will get to come along every 10, 20, maybe 30 years.

He chose Marquette because he enjoyed that program up there.

He enjoyed the man, Al McGuire.

Anyone who goes off to school, I think you should have high respect for your coach.

If you're going to participate in any kind of athletic activity, have high respect for the coach you're going to play under.

Go, go, go!

Marquette coach Al McGuire was born in the Bronx.

He went from street play to tougher playground ball to a brief stint with the New York Knicks and finally to his job at Marquette University.

His efforts to bring big city ghetto players to Milwaukee are well known.

McGuire, who's leaving basketball to go into the business world, admits his own success was due as much to showmanship as to his talent on the court.

But success he has had, due in no small part to some sharp big city recruiting.

But it's like anything in life.

I'm comfortable recruiting in the Big Apple.

I'm comfortable and shy.

And that's about it.

You take me down to Baltimore or out to San Francisco or Omaha, I just don't feel right.

So I don't recruit there.

And I just go where I think that I'm at my best and that the good ballplayers are.

The only ones I go after are the good ones.

I believe that a no from anyone is the same, good, bad or indifferent.

But a yes from a great one is so much different than a yes from an average player.

So that's why I go after what we call the blue chip color red.

Parker High School's Bo Ellis is a blue chipper.

He did the job with both books and basketball.

And he managed to walk that thin line that leads from the street to school.

He is part of his community.

But he steered clear of people who would take his eye off his goal.

Well, being in basketball, it kept me away from them type of people.

I didn't have to be on the street.

I gangbanged like everybody else because I had to gangbang.

There were so many different gangs around my house.

So I had to be a part of it.

But when it came to shooting guns and everything, then I went home.

And that's where I was supposed to be.

And when you're growing up in the city and you're an athlete, gangs and people with drugs, they don't mess with you.

They kind of idolize people like that because they see you doing something to help yourself.

And they kind of motivate you and push you.

Like I go back home now, all my friends are not dead now or on drugs or something.

They always motivate me, say, "We want to see you get it, get that money, and go on to school and finish up."

Watch it, Vo.

Watch it, Vo.

George Pruitt credits Vo's choice to his close relationship with his mother.

But on the streets, it can always go another way.

Dope is the specter that haunts the city streets and kills good talent where it grows.

Sometimes the soft, sly voice of the hustler drowns out the thump of the basketball and superb players like New York's legendary playground hero, Earl Manigault, get lost along the way.

It just was one of those holidays coming back to New York when I started getting high.

And I like the high better than I like school.

Earl Manigault was one of the players that-- it's like a legend that you hear about and read about and never get a chance to see play.

I was lucky in the sense that I got a chance to see him play a few times, not knowing who he was at the beginning.

We used to go down to a beach, Reese Beach in Brooklyn, and on Sundays, the guys would have pretty good pickup games, and we were playing one day, and this guy-- after we won the first game, the team that had Nexus, this guy was coming on the court, and he had some cut-off jeans and no sneakers on, some soft-bottomed shoes, and he came out there, and everybody was talking to him.

I had never seen him before.

And we played, and after the game, we lost.

And then after the game, I was asking guys, "Who was this guy?"

And they told me it was Earl Manigault.

And I had heard of the name, but I didn't know who he was when he came on the court.

But there are a lot of players like that that are just as much talent.

And some, I've seen a couple that had more talent, and they didn't make it.

And it's upsetting to see that.

[horn honking] Jim McMillan says the streets can be hard on people like the Goat who developed early and became a hero at a young age.

It's hard to handle the glory with its pressures and temptations.

I was lacking in education.

I was the type of guy that didn't like to go to school.

I had the basketball background, but I didn't have the schooling.

It would have been a lot different.

I know this.

But I just didn't have, you know, a big brother out there.

The only one that tried to do anything for me was Rucker, and Rucker was dealing with 2,000, 3,000 to 4,000 kids, you know.

And he just couldn't spend all his time on me.

I never had a father.

You know, my mother, she had to work, you know, to pay the rent, you know, get food and get some kind of clothing for me.

I heard a lot of guys was going to try for the Jersey Americans, and I was one of them.

I just went out, you know, to try to make the team.

So they didn't allow me, you know.

I wasn't invited.

Well, I wasn't one of the select few because at the time I was using drugs.

Everybody plays basketball, and then the younger fellas, you know, look up to like the B-Line, for instance, me, Connie Huffman, Charlie Scott, or Tanya Archibald.

Earl Manigault remains a hero on the playgrounds.

When he's able, he has a clinic and a tournament for city youngsters.

He came up playing undercoach, you know, and he's a great brother, man.

Just too bad that his talents, you know, was wasted during them later years when he was messing around and everything.

But I think now he can help a lot of the kids today make the pros, you know, if he's given the opportunity to because he is a very great brother.

This is what I'm working on, but it's taking, you know, I know everything takes time, but this thing here is just taking a little too long, you know.

Well, I know a lot of people back home in Chicago that definitely should be in the pros or definitely should be in college, but they're not there for one reason or another for not being able to go to school and get the books or it's either because the neighborhood held them back or drugs or they got killed or something like that or, you know, have to stay home to support a baby and a girlfriend.

They see great players, they know they're better than the player that Marquette's recruiting or Indiana's recruiting or whoever might be recruiting, St. John's in New York.

They know that that player is better on that playground, but no education, playing street games, it's over.

Their life's over.

So they stop at 36, they stop playing.

We call them stickball heroes.

You know, I was brought up in the Bronx in New York, and a guy played stickball on 168th Street.

Then 20 years later, the guy would be sitting in the bar talking about the stickball game.

Who the hell cares about a stickball game?

The stickball game is like building castles in the sand.

The tide comes in and takes them out.

It's over.

You've got to build another castle.

You see so many guys who you think deserve to make it, and they don't make it.

And then I often ask myself, "Why was I so lucky?"

[gunshots] Tales of quota systems and racism in the world of basketball can contradict the promise and possibility of basketball as a way out.

Gifted players who survive the playground pecking order and make their way through high school may find themselves heavily recruited.

Marquette's Butch Lee is a star and blue chipper.

He says his Harlem childhood helped prepare him for college ball.

[music] I think it kind of makes you tougher.

You know, it's like a sifting process, because there's so many people in New York and especially around my neighborhood, and to get out of it, you know, you have to--you know, you work so hard.

And I think you just get used to working hard.

You don't let--you know, there's--you know, there's not a lot of detours after that.

You know, you can--you know, you want to fight things out and get past all obstacles.

Oh, they're better because they compete.

You're as good--you can only be as good as who you compete against.

And they have a constant challenge down five stories, 200 yards to the left and to the right.

There's a playground or a basket on a lamppost or something.

The style here in the city is Dr. J style.

You know what I mean?

We do things very exciting.

Most kids in the city are not content with going in and just make a normal layup.

They have to put a little extra sauce on it, which motivates the crowd each time.

They're a little bit more streetwise, a little bit more tougher as far as depression, you know, getting what we call a black ass or getting into a drought.

They're all the same.

They mean all the same thing.

That's a down tick type of spiraling down.

McGuire is no stranger to emotional outbursts that may be rooted in black/white tension, and he handles them in his own way.

I talk about them.

I bring them right out in the open.

And I'm violent and vocally with my ballplayers, and I say things that are shocking.

Well, it was hard at first.

I came from an all-black school, and I had never really been exposed to mixed races and other people from other places.

So I'm kind of quiet.

So it took me a little while, but I just sat back and watched and felt myself out, and everybody is human.

I just liked it.

It's something that just kind of grows on you, and I think it depends on the type of individual that you are.

Another thing we do that shocks people, whether it be white or black or white on white, whatever you want, is that we don't stop fights at Marquette.

When you start a fight or have a fight, you fight.

You fight for about three or four minutes, and then we scrimmage again.

We make nothing out of it.

The next time we go on the road, we room you two guys together.

And I've always liked this because I felt that little things break teams apart, and little things will stop a fight.

Big things put people together.

You're a family.

If someone breaks their leg, you get together.

If someone knocks over a glass of milk, you can have a divorce over the silly damn thing.

[horn blaring] City players return to their playgrounds like homing pigeons.

They're heroes, and if city kids lack equipment, they get some pretty classy coaching and some good advice.

Oh, I definitely--I think I'm going to live in the city all my life because I love it.

I like going home.

I like being harassed by the little kids, you know, when they see you on TV or, you know, why y'all lose to Indiana.

Well, you know, I always try to talk to the little kids, especially the ones that are, you know, good in any different fields like basketball or football, you know, because it is a way out for the younger kids, and you really have to, you know, show them some kind of direction because being so young, you know, at that time they can't really see past, you know, the drugs and the streets and so I guess you have somebody out there guiding them, you know, one time or another.

A lot of players that I had deemed a dream manager out of Harlem, I can remember I went down to watch him play in the playgrounds, and when he walked in, two of the little black guys says, "Hey, there's the dream."

You know, it was like Rock Hudson or Mickey Mantle coming into the playground.

The pros do return to the playgrounds, but they have to be ready for the kids because the kids are ready for them.

I have to be ready.

I have to be in shape mentally and in shape physically because the talent in the playgrounds is so tremendous until it's easy, very easy for a professional athlete, professional basketball player, to get embarrassed out there playing because the kids really, they realize who you are, but to them it's like a challenge, you know, they're going to try and do their best, and if you relax just the slightest, then you can get embarrassed out there.

Jim McMillan of the New York Knicks calls himself lucky, but there is more to it than that.

The main influence in my life, which has been constant throughout, has been my mother.

My parents were divorced when I was young, and we lived with my mother, and she was the main steadying influence in my life.

After four years at Columbia University, McMillan was ready to go into law when the pros offered him a contract.

But if I hadn't have made it in this professional basketball, it wouldn't have been a big letdown for me because I wasn't hung up on it.

I wasn't obsessed with becoming a professional athlete, and I think that's very important for other people who are in the same situation, similar situation, if they can maybe have other goals in life and not totally become obsessed with becoming a professional athlete.

The theme is there's got to be somebody in your corner.

Jim's personal plans, family support, and sense of proportion adds up to a formula for making that playground dream pay off.

That's my main ambition is playing pro ball for a couple of years and trying to get settled in fashion designing and maybe one day have my own line of clothes for pro basketball players, like have my own line of clothes like the Bo Ellis fashion for tall ball players in the league that demands the dress, that can't get the clothes that shorter guys can get in their particular style.

So I hope to get moving in something like this, in some type of business doing that art because I feel I have a lot more talents than just beside playing basketball, and I don't want to do that forever, just for a little while, and enjoy it, enjoy the life and everything, and have a little fun and just get some other things working for me.

Fame is like Miss America seven years ago.

Seven years go by and she might get a one pop a year at the old-timers game down in Atlantic City, just like Johnny Logan or Eddie Matthews, they get the old-timers game to buzz the country.

And I think these things are nice as long as they have used what they had, that they didn't become fools.

You know, that's the way it started off, when you didn't have much attention, then you get the attention, then later on the attention leaves you again, and you just have to get used to it because it's going to come one day or another in every aspect of life.

There is no easy way out of our city ghettos.

Examples of success in many fields could point the way.

Other alternatives and choices could be made attractive and within grasp.

Basketball is only one choice and a long shot, but it's exciting and accessible, and so are its heroes, and so the dream persists.

You know, realistically, if you look at the percentages of people, the good players that come up through high school and colleges that ever make it into the pros is frightening low, very, very low, the percentage of guys that ever make it to a professional level.

But it's tough to explain that to a youngster who is looking for a way out.

[Music] This program was made possible in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.